Book Review: The Story About the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature, edited by J.C. Hallman

We want to read all the greats in literature but don’t have time. We want to think critically and really interpret the work, but understanding the writing of Kafka, T.S. Eliot, and Chekov is far removed from the “reading for pleasure” impulse when we do have time to enjoy a book.

Here in The Story About the Story, from Tin House Books, editor J.C. Hallman does the work for us. He presents us with over 400 pages of great writers who are reading and thinking about great writers. Some of the resultant essays are interpretive, some are analytical, some are envious. Above all, they hold all writers to the highest standards and honor the sheer power of writing to reach people: heart, mind and soul.

Hallman calls this collection not criticism or debate but a “personal literary analysis - criticism that contemplates rather than argues.” I’ve often disliked the core element of some literary criticism for presuming it is within our right to interpret what an author meant, wrote, or should have written. Hallman agrees “Criticism should limit its concerns to what a writer has attempted to express and how he has attempted to express it.”

There are more than 30 essays in The Story About the Story, combining a shared love of words, reading, and writing. They come to us from people who fully understand the labor and struggles involved in writing a book, and they allow us to “celebrate the work, rather than exhaust it.”

Vladimir Nabokov’s interpretation of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka includes an actual Nabakov sketch of Samsa’s apartment. The critique of this story draws us into Nabokov’s discussion of fantasy and reality, as he carefully analyzes the story’s structure and themes, scene by scene. Nabokov's thoughtful critique of The Metamorphosis actually improves our enjoyment of the original story, through Nabokov’s curious insights into the story’s symbols.

Michael Chabon evaluates what Montague Rhodes James, a highly anthologized English author, is doing in his writing of Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You My Lad. Chabon asks us to slow down and consider what this ghost story really is. He analyzes this work by M.R. James, reflecting on the genre, its psychology, and our capacity for terror and emotion, along with the “hyperacute sense of the past” shared by most great ghost story authors.

Article Author: Helen Gallagher

Helen Gallagher reviews non-fiction books and shares insights when attending author and publishing events on Chicago's North Shore. She is a national speaker on technology, writing and publishing. She's a member of American Society of Journalists & …

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